Holly Gardenier

Holly Gardenier is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) with 35 years of experience who helps people navigate trauma, grief, anxiety, and life transitions. She writes for people feeling stuck by painful memories, recurring sadness, or confusing urges and wants therapy that focuses on practical next steps. Holly emphasizes working at a steady pace so people can feel safer with what comes up in sessions.

Her background includes long experience addressing addiction-related behaviors and intense emotional states. She works with people who struggle with mood shifts, anger, eating concerns, relationship intimacy, and the long shadow of past abuse. Holly draws on approaches that center on trauma-focused work alongside acceptance-based and emotion-focused methods.

In sessions she uses straightforward tools and mindfulness practices to help clients notice patterns and make small changes. She encourages adding simple daily rituals, like brief meditation, to gather clarity between visits. The work aims to help people make different choices when distress arises and feel more present in their day-to-day life.

Holly’s clinical approach is collaborative and paced to each person’s needs. She invites curiosity about the deeper causes of distress while keeping the work grounded in practical skills for coping. Her practice is based in Wisconsin and she conducts therapy in English.

People interested in beginning will find a guided, steady approach that balances emotional exploration with concrete steps for coping and recovery.

Approaches that guide online work

Holly uses trauma-focused therapy to help people process painful memories and reduce the ways past events interfere with daily life. This approach aims to help someone feel less overwhelmed by traumatic memories and learn coping strategies for triggers.

She also incorporates Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which focuses on noticing thoughts without getting stuck and committing to actions that match personal values. ACT can be useful for anxiety, depression, and ongoing life stress. In addition, Holly uses Client-Centered Therapy ideas that prioritize listening, empathy, and following the client’s lead to build trust and clarity.

Finding the right approach is part of the work together. Holly will help figure out which methods fit a person’s needs, goals, and preferences. That decision is collaborative and can shift as therapy progresses.

If you are considering online sessions, please confirm the specific session formats before booking since the biography does not list them. Online therapy can make it easier to fit sessions around work, reduce travel time, allow shorter check-ins when schedules are tight, and let people use mindfulness or other skills in real-life settings between meetings.